Carrollton falls in their first WIVC game to undefeated Triopia

MEREDOSIA - Eventually, boys have to grow up and become men.

“It’s time to forget about us being young and start to play varsity basketball,” Carrollton head coach Matt Goetten said.

One of those facets he would point out is rebounding, which has been a bugaboo for Carrollton through five games.

“I thought we executed our game plan pretty well except part of it was not giving up 17 offensive rebounds, so we have to shore that up,”

In their opening WIVC contest of the season, the Hawks were defeated by the Trojans 76-54 at Meredosia-Chambersburg Junior High School in Meredosia on Friday night.

Carrollton drops to 2-3, and Triopia remains unbeaten at 6-0.

Gabe Jones scored a career-high 20 points and collected nine rebounds to lead the Hawks in both categories. Sophomore Hunter Flowers added ten points with Ethan Brannan and Kyle Waters following up with seven and six respectively.

“It felt good to come out here and play good, but we gotta do better. We don’t quit, but we’re not responding to three’s very well. I think we had a lot of nice surges where we came in and played well, but we just gotta keep them off the glass on offense,” Jones said.

“He is a next-level athlete that hasn’t even scratched his potential. He is a kid I’ve been high on since he was a freshman. He’s a double-double guy, and he’s gotta bring that every night or we have no chance to win. I have a lot of nice athletes, but Gabe needs to give us that effort all the time,” Goetten said. “In his defense at halftime he was throwing up, he’s been sick, and I’m not using that as an excuse.”

In the last two weeks, a good portion of students at Carrollton High School alone came down with the flu and missed school, including several players like Jones, Nathan Walker, and Ethan Brannan. However, Goetten insists that they can’t use that as an excuse as to why they’ve lost.

The Trojans proved why they were undefeated by showing their adaptability.

Triopia's star point guard Shawn Bell is arguably one of the best point guards in the WIVC, but Carrollton limited him to eight points and got him into foul trouble. However, Camden Schmitz led all scorers with a career-high 25 points, and Zach Thompson followed with 20, and Garrett Snow scored 12.

“Triopia has a very nice team. They’re deep, and man they just keep coming at you with different looks. They’re constantly driving down hill, although I thought we did a better job of stepping up and taking a few charges. That’s something we emphasize,” Goetten said.

“We were trying to stop Bell and Thompson. We didn’t do so well with Thompson, he’s a really nice guard, but we knew Bell was dangerous too. We did a pretty good job with him. I told the guys if the game plan beats us that’s on me. I take full responsibility for that loss because I didn’t expect the other two to step up like they did. Kudos to them.”

Carrollton led 15-14 after one quarter and trailed 22-20 with under five minutes to play in the first half when Triopia made their run. Garrett Snow scored ten of his 12 points in the second quarter, while Schmitz collected nine.That was all part of a 21-8 run by the Trojans and to cap it off Zach Thompson followed up on a last-second shot and managed a put-back off a missed shot to beat the buzzer, which gave his team a 43-28 lead.

“That kind of summed the entire game up,” Goetten said.

Typical of the Hawks so far this season they refused to quit and even put a dent in their deficit.

Jones scored 11 points in the third quarter, which sparked a Carrollton run that narrowed the Triopia lead to eight points, but that would be as close as the Hawks would get for the remainder of the game.

With Bell in foul trouble, the Trojans relied on the athletically gifted Thompson to assume his position, which he performed admirably. The junior scored 12 points in the final quarter, including two triples that helped put the dagger into the Hawks.

“We made a nice push in the third quarter. It would’ve been easy for them again to lay down. They don’t have any quit in them, but we just didn’t rebound the ball well enough,” Goetten said. “We would get the stop we needed and then [Triopia] would get a second and third opportunity. That’s what it came down to.”

These two teams will meet again in the first round of the Winchester Invitational Tournament on Jan 6 at 7:00 p.m. Carrollton is the 11 seed and Triopia the three seed.

“I’m excited about it, and I think the guys are excited to get them again too on a neutral court at Winchester,” Goetten said.

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